


Curiosity and Devotion (Transcends Death)

by rewmariewrites



Series: Teen Wolf Shorts [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Mentions of past abuse, Mild Crossover AU, No One from the Vampire Diaries Shows Up, No One is Good at Feelings Talk, References to Depression, Refusal to Grieve, Scott is Bad at Grief, Sheriff Stilinski Knows, Sheriff Stilinski is Bad at Grief, Sneaky Derek Narration, mentions of triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 08:13:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15044564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rewmariewrites/pseuds/rewmariewrites
Summary: “Yes. So stay.” Derek interrupted, trying to smile and frown at the same time. It must’ve resulted in a very strange expression because Stiles absolutely cackled, throwing his head back against blue sheets (blue, so blue, and why is that what Derek remembers most in that moment instead of the emotion on Stiles’ face or the way his hip felt under Derek’s hand or the way his eyes-)





	Curiosity and Devotion (Transcends Death)

**Author's Note:**

> Reference the tags for trigger warnings ^^^ if I missed anything, let me know  
> edit 08/02/19: added fic to 'Teen Wolf Shorts' series and did a couple formatting edits

It was so, _so_ dumb. Probably the dumbest way he could’ve gone, especially considering all the shit with the Kanima, the Alpha Pack, the Nogitsune, and everything after that.  
  
He was driving home. Driving home from Stanford - almost in Beacon Hills, only three towns over in Mystic Falls - when that stupid fucking bridge collapsed. You would think that having like three other accidents on that bridge (who was it, the Wilberts, the Nilberts?) would make the town fix it or tear it down, but no. Why is it that this particular region of Northern California is such a magnet for tragedy?  
  
Try as they might, they can’t even really blame the Jeep. Sure, it didn’t have removable headrests and the doors we’re always sticky, but they’d been able to get out of it before, even while experiencing varying degrees of submersion. That time in the lake with the pixies and the lost (read: angry) nyad was a perfect example; Stiles had been furious Scott had broken the passenger door getting out, but it was better than the alternative. This alternative.  
  
It was just _so stupid_ , was all. Things had finally been... okay. Sure, Beacon Hills would always have a ‘horror of the week’ and Scott and Derek would never get along and there would always be too much water beneath the bridge ( _too soon_ , Stiles would laugh, _way too soon!)_ for anyone to really forgive anyone yet (though at this point, who hadn’t done something that needed to be forgiven?), but the process was starting. People were healing. The pack was more or less established in their territory and they were starting to act like a family. This, though... they probably couldn’t survive this. Stiles was the glue and they were the shitty macaroni pieces in the macaroni art, constantly falling out of place and having to be stuck back in where they belonged.  
  
The worst part, they _very worst part_ , is that Stiles had been in the middle of leaving a message when he - well.  
  
“Hey, Dad, just calling to let you know I’m in Mystic Falls now - basically home! I know what you said about not checking out those vampire rumours until the pack is more established and well-known but I figure I’m already here, soooooo I might as well stop by the pub at least? I don’t know. I’m really excited to get home, so maybe I won’t check it out after all. Derek won’t even tell me if he thinks vampires are _real_ or not, so I’d probably be wasting my time, but I don’t even really need to _specifically_ check out vampires because, you know, I’ve heard some really interesting things about this herb called vervain that grows around here that kinda works like wolfsb- oh fuck-“  
  
His last words are immortalized in his dad’s voicemail, and that is something the Sheriff cannot live with. Is “having trouble” living with. He’s basically trying to follow Stiles into the grave via copious amounts of alcohol, and even the pack can’t quite seem to bring him back from the edge. Stiles would have been able to, but Stiles is gone, and if the pack loses the Sheriff so soon after losing Stiles, none of them will survive this.  
  
Scott, too, is a mess. Surprisingly even more of a mess than he was after Allison, which, considering the length and intensity of the Stiles-and-Scott friendship, shouldn’t be as much of a surprise as it is. Stiles was Scott’s _world_ until Allison game around, and then _Allison_ was Scott’s whole world, and neither Scott nor Stiles had really recovered from the way her death cracked their friendship, but just like everyone else, they were healing. Regardless, when Scott packs up and skips town three hours after the funeral (a memorial service, really, because they still haven’t found a body and they had to grieve over a _headstone_ and an _empty grave),_  no one knows what to do. When Isaac finds him three days later under the remnants of the Mystic Falls’ bridge, eyes wild and almost feral, no one knows what to do then, either. Eventually Scott calms and comes home, but he spends too much time with the Sheriff and a bottle of cheap whiskey. Scott - and therefore the rest of the pack - quickly find out you can get drunk on non-wolfsbane-infused liquor if you simply drink a staggering amount of it, making Melissa wonder if Scott will take after his father after all. He looks like him already, she tells Derek after a particularly rough week of ER shifts and Scott drama, why not add the raging alcoholism that made her leave in the first place? Drunk calls from Scott are not angry or mean or violent like his father’s were, but they are still drunk. Trauma doesn’t discriminate, and Melissa’s triggers are becoming more sensitive the longer Scott keeps stumbling upon them.  
  
Derek is the only one even remotely appearing like he’s keeping things together, but that’s only because he doesn’t think he’s allowed to mourn. Everyone else thinks it’s because he’s done so much grieving already (for his mom, his dad, his brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and cousins and- well. You probably get the point) that either he’s that good at it, or he just has nothing left to feel. No one knows about the moments he’s hanging onto, the ‘almosts’ that Stiles promised would become ‘definitelys’ as soon as they had a moment to sit down and talk about it properly. Stiles always needed Derek to use his words, to spell out _exactly_ what he wanted or needed. Stiles said it was because Derek was bad at it and he needed practice, but Derek knows that Stiles was really giving him time to process, to consider his own triggers and trauma, and to give him space to make his own choices.  
  
They had come such a long way. From threats of throats and teeth and ripping, to this, now.

Well. This, then.

Derek can almost hear the way Stiles’ laugh echoed off the high ceilings of the new Hale house, how he felt squirming in Derek’s arms after a play-chase, how it felt to trace the constellation of moles over his jaw and down his neck. The memory of that one night, just before Stiles went back to Stanford this last time, haunts him.  
  
“Stay.” Derek had said, intended it to be too soft for Stiles to hear.  
  
Stiles had laughed, soft and bone-tired. Turned and smiled at Derek, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Not this time, I really do need to go. But... think about what you want to say to me. We’ll have a big talk about it, about this, about commitment - if that’s what you want! ‘Cause the way we’ve been interacting I’m pretty sure that’s what you want, and -“  
  
“Yes. So stay.” Derek interrupted, trying to smile and frown at the same time. It must’ve resulted in a very strange expression because Stiles absolutely cackled, throwing his head back against blue sheets _(blue, so blue, and why is that what Derek remembers most in that moment instead of the emotion on Stiles’ face or the way his hip felt under Derek’s hand or the way his eyes-)_  
  
“Take time to think, then tell me what you want, Sourwolf, you know how this works. I’ll be back in three weeks, and depending how our little talk goes, I might just be persuaded to stay a little longer.”  
  
And the pack bond, the one Derek feels at all times with all members of the pack, it _soars_ \- except, now, it’s cold and dead and hollow, just like Stiles is. All because of a stupid bridge. And Derek isn’t allowed to mourn, not like a lover would, not like he wants, because all he and Stiles had were stolen moments when the rest of the pack was busy or away, and it wouldn’t be fair to those who really _deserve_ to mourn for Derek to come in and dump all of this on them. No, he has to be a rock, for the pack, because that’s what alphas do.  
  
Except, six days after bringing Scott back, Isaac sits down in the living room of the newly renovated Hale house, carefully avoiding even _looking_ at Stiles’ spot on the couch, and says,  
  
“I know that you and Stiles were... something. Romantic. And I need to know why - why you’re - you don’t have to hold back if that’s why. Is all. I _know_ , so, you’re allowed to feel whatever it is you’re not feeling.”  
  
And it’s tentative and forced but it feels so much like Stiles has been (had been, _had_ _)_ having “feelings talks” with Isaac too, sounds so much like Stiles’ influence even from beyond the grave, that all Derek can do is stare at Isaac with this horrible look on his face, fingers squeezing and squeezing his thigh (no claws though, claws are bad, _self harm is not something we do here_ , Stiles chastises in his head) until Isaac is suddenly kneeling in front of him with this shocked, sad look on his face like one tear from Derek will set him off too, and just says, “Derek. You need to - grief can’t be monopolized. Just because no one knew doesn’t mean - you need to - you’re not taking away from anyone else’s grief by grieving yourself.”  
  
It takes all the willpower Derek has to ask, “The pack?”  
  
Isaac looks at Derek for a long time before saying, “For now, it will just be you and me. For now. Not forever. I’ll let you grieve until the pack needs you, and then I’ll pull you out of it, and then maybe we can all try to help each other through this.”  
  
Derek can’t really remember what happens that week, but he knows Isaac is there the whole time. He is so consumed with thoughts of the possibility of Stiles, what they could have had, and how he was the last one to touch Stiles like that, that he can’t function outside of basic human needs, and even those are hard. When after a week Isaac puts down a card for a therapist in front of him, tells him he’ll be taking him to an appointment in an hour and in three days he’ll be talking to the Sheriff, he knows his time to get lost in his grief is up.  
  
“You can still grieve, but we need you back now. It can’t take up all of you anymore. They’re lost. And I - I need. I’m lost too.” Isaac hasn’t improved at “feelings talk” in this last week, but neither has Derek, so he understands perfectly.  
  
He has a broken pack, a pack stripped down to its barest components by the loss of their pack member. Human members of packs leave just as big a hole as their furrier counterparts _(you can’t say the word furry if you don’t want me to make a furry joke!_ Stiles’ voice howls with laughter), and that loss feels like a phantom limb, gone but constantly aching and itching and demanding attention. If he digs past his own hurt, looks around the gaping wound Stiles left in his chest and in the pack bonds, Derek can feel that the pack is drifting, practically untethered.

He knows he can fix it. It will never be as good as it was when Stiles was there, never, but it can be close. It will be awful, but it will be better than having no pack at all, again.  
  
He just wishes he could burn that stupid, stupid bridge to the ground - yes, _burn_ , even considering how he feels about fire. Once the mention of the bridge doesn’t make Lydia leave the room, or Scott twitch towards the liquor cabinet, it might be worth a trip over to Mystic Falls to make sure that bridge will never be a problem again. While his therapist would say that trip probably doesn’t have healthy connotations, Derek likes to think of it as an opportunity for closure. Among other things.

He wants to go to Mystic Falls for another reason, too. He wants to go and pick up some of that vervain to plant over Stiles’ grave, because Stiles’ curiosity and devotion transcends even death, and he would like the idea that the combination of wolfsbane and vervain on his grave would help the pack, especially if vampires _do_ turn out to be a thing.  
  
Derek just likes the idea of Stiles protected from anything that might want to hurt him ever again.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me at rewmariewrites.tumblr.com!


End file.
